The iron-fisted Literati have taken over the world.  I’m hustling through a darkened alley with a handful of comic-book enthusiasts.  We’re fearfully clutching our last runs of Ennis’s Punisher, Hickman’s Avengers, as well as Ales Kot’s numerous culture-pushing classics.  Three Chimera-class drones gleam their spotlights harshly down on us, and in the oppressive light, we’re forced to shade our eyes and squint.  “COMIC BOOK LOVERS.  STATUTE 689 REQUIRES ALL CITIZENS TO SACRIFICE EITHER THEIR FIRST-BORN—OR A SINGLE LIMB OF THEIR CHOOSING—ON THE ALTAR OF GRAMMAR LOCATED AT ACADEMIA SQUARE.  YOU HAVE NOT COMPLIED.  YOU HAVE ALSO COMMITTED THE FELONY OF NOT SPEAKING IN A FALSE ENGLISH ACCENT AND SPOUTING OUT LINES FROM SHAKESPEARE WITH A CULT-LIKE, ATTENTION-SEEKING SMILE ON YOUR FACE THAT ENCOURAGES EVERYONE TO JOIN YOU IN A MIRE OF TRADITIONALIST IDIOCY.”  We’re done for.  Chimera drones are armed with a bevy of direct and indirect fire options, as well as offensive thermic weapons.  One of my brave, foolish compatriots gives the drones the finger, but before he can yell his defiance, a hard-light laser beams down and cuts him in half from crown to crotch.  We scream in horror as his body falls into two distinct pieces.  One option left.  I open my eReader to Echo.  Magic flash.  X-Wings with velociraptor teeth/faces drawn on their snouts roar through the air, blasting apart the drones in a blur of turbolasers.  We cover our heads and duck down as flaming wreckage arcs through the sky, and when I look up, I see that the fighter craft are manned by The Badass Writers of Old—Hemingway, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien; men who lived life outside the professorial nerdishness that defines the Literati.  Hemingway downs an entire bottle of whiskey—I see the bubbles flowing up toward the bottom of the upturned bottle as he chugs them shits—then he widens his eyes, screams WHOOOOOOO, and barrel-rolls his fighter away into the night.  I see his 4L4 fusial thrust engines leave glowing trails of sublight exhaust and I can’t help but crack a mile-wide smile.

It’s only a matter of time before the Literati flood the skies with drones.  Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here:  Vol. 1 on Kindle.  Vol. 2 on Kindle here:  Vol.2 on Kindle